What your tub of Vaso can really do1:15

Princess Diana at the 30th anniversary celebration of the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations in London on December 9, 1996. Princess Diana was the patron of The Leprosy Mission. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AP PhotoSource:AP

A disease more associated with biblical times is still appearing in Australia.

While leprosy is considered eliminated here, rare cases still pop up each year.

Two cases have already been reported in New South Wales for 2019 compared with last year’s zero.

Once shunned from society and feared because they were highly infectious, people with leprosy — historically called lepers — these days aren’t treated as they were in ancient times.

The oldest disease known to be associated with humans, described in the literature of ancient civilisations, attacks the nerves, causing numbness in the hands, feet and face.

An inability to feel pain in the extremities often leads to sufferers injuring themselves, damaging tissue and ultimately leading to deformity.

A painting depicting a leprosy sufferer. Leprosy is an ancient disease, with evidence of characteristic bone pitting and deformities found in burial sites in India dating as far back as 2000 B.C.Source:News Limited

Princess Diana at the 30th anniversary celebration of the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations in London on December 9, 1996. Picture: Adrian Dennis/AP PhotoSource:AP

Also know as Hansen’s disease, between 2000 and 2018 there were 43 confirmed leprosy cases in NSW, an average of two cases per year.

The only cases recorded in Australia this year have been in NSW, and both infections were picked up overseas.

Last year there were six cases of leprosy nationally. Four came from overseas, while the other two remain unclear.

None of the cases were reported as being an individual of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background.

Hundreds of mostly indigenous people suffering leprosy were forcibly removed from their homes across the Northern Territory and sent by the Commonwealth Government to live in isolation at the Channel Island Leprosarium between 1931 and 1955.

Once ripped from the arms of their loved ones and banished to the island, many were subjected to forced labour and held captive there for years.

An estimated 140 people never made it out of the Channel Island Leprosarium alive, dying an early death from a range of illnesses and a lack of medical care. At least 60 bodies are thought to remain in unmarked graves on the island.

The Mud Island leper station was opened in 1884, with leprosy sufferers confined there until the move to Channel Island in 1931.Source:Supplied

In 2016, WHO launched its Global Leprosy Strategy 2016–2020: Accelerating towards a leprosy-free world to reinvigorate efforts for leprosy control.

There were 211,009 new leprosy cases registered globally in 2017.

That same year was the anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, and The Leprosy Mission highlighted how her legacy lived on through the organisation.

The Leprosy Mission was the only international development charity Princess Diana retained when she reduced her patronage of more than 100 charities down to just six in 1996.

She made huge strides in tackling the stigma surrounding leprosy by touching those affected by the disease.

While today the disease is largely found in developing countries, it’s persistent in Western countries where it is passed between animals such as squirrels and armadillos back to humans.

“Wild animals harbour all kinds of diseases that can be transmitted to humans, particularly when there may be contact with blood or when eating the meat,” wrote leprosy researcher